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Apple Pencil, for real

As we talk about on Core Intuition episode 208, I finally got an Apple Pencil. It’s great. My experience matches Gus Mueller’s, about how good the Apple Pencil is after years of using Wacom tablets and third-party iOS styluses:

“I find that when using the HB Pencil in Procreate, I get something that is very, very close to what I feel when I’m drawing in my sketchbooks. But of course now I’ve got layers and many colors and a perfect eraser to work with. And endless pages. I love it.”

“That’s the question I get asked a lot from people — my wife especially. Apple will tell you it is not a stylus because it is so much better than any other stylus, it clearly is something else. So, instead, I’ll tell you that it is very much a stylus — it just so happens to be the best stylus I have ever encountered on any device.”

I’ve also been improving the Apple Pencil support in an iPad app I’m working on. I haven’t completely finished reading Russ Bishop’s article on supporting the Apple Pencil, but looks like it has a bunch of additional tips in it that I’d benefit from. It covers not just the API changes to UITouch, but also gestures, coalescing, and predictive touches.